


these violent delights (have violent ends)

by OccasionallyCreative



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ladyhawke Fusion, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Ghosts, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Snoke Being a Dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-17 02:23:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13649466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OccasionallyCreative/pseuds/OccasionallyCreative
Summary: The news runs like a wildfire through the galaxy.Kylo Ren found something, someone, else to believe in. He gutted his master for her life. In return, vestiges of Snoke's power delivered a punishment greater than anything either the fallen Knight or the last Jedi could imagine. Together forever, eternally apart.





	these violent delights (have violent ends)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [politicalmamaduck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/politicalmamaduck/gifts).



> Happy reveal day - and now here's some angst! *throws confetti*
> 
> I don't know where this came from, to be honest. There was such a glorious smorgasbord of tropes to pick from and suddenly my brain, two days before the deadline (typical), gave me smuggler Ben mixed with the fairytale-slash-cheesy 80s romance film I not-so-secretly die for, Ladyhawke. Written in a bit of a fever dream all in one day after a massive case of writer's block, so I hope it makes some kind of sense.

The news runs like a wildfire through the galaxy.

“The Jedi Killer is no longer a part of the First Order,” declares Armitage Hux, the new Supreme Leader of the First Order standing with his guard of loyal stormtroopers behind him. "He is disloyal to all. A traitor to all."

A thousand credits to the creature who could bring the head of the Jedi Killer to the First Order.

Blue forms of Hux repeat throughout the galaxy, the holonet echoing his words.

Words, however, are malleable. They are water. They flow freely, the rhythm ever-changing as they pass from one person’s lips to another. Words are intimacy. Whispered between friends, murmured between lovers.

The First Order once spoke of a terrifying force at their head, by the name of Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren razed pitiful, needless villages and killed dissenters.

Now he is the Jedi Killer. Weak, without courage, and spurned by both the Resistance and the First Order.

He stares into the mirror. Behind him, the water of the fresher spatters. He rubs his chin. On the sink, beard suppressants long ignored. Since the bounties on his head, since 'Jedi Killer' leeched onto his name, change has been forced upon him. Scruff covers his jaw, and his hair is tied back into a bun. Two thin braids run across the crest of his head, keeping the curls in place. He wears brown, in the form of a stolen jacket. Covered in desert dust in a marketplace, he’d paid credit for it without thinking twice. Bundling himself into an alleyway, he ripped off the Rebellion insignia on its sleeve and left the tear. He made sure to involve himself in a brawl more than once. People were more inclined these days to not look at someone bruised and battered. They preferred to walk on by.

“Ben.” He whirls around, bumping his hip against the sink’s sharp edge. She smiles softly while he curses. He looks up. Her brown eyes are light. She is light. Always, whenever he sees her. Even when she has been close to despair, close to collapse, light has still spilt out from her fingertips.

His mouth waters. “Rey.”

With the Force, he switches off the fresher. She wrinkles her nose.

“You must stink.”

It’s so domestic, so asinine, that all he can do is tip his head back and laugh. A singular, blast of a laugh. She giggles, and he makes his decision.

He strides forward, coming to a stop before her. He reaches out. To cup her cheeks, to wipe away the tears glistening in her eyes.

His hands pass over her skin and his mouth misses her lips.

She looks at him with infinite sadness. A thousand mistakes in her tears. They glitter like stars down her cheeks.

He tips his forehead towards where he knows hers would be, at the right angle to rest his against hers. If she were real. If she were blood and muscle and bone and everything that makes her. He tries to cup the crest of her shoulder, but his palm brushes through starlight.

“Would you have—?” he asks, sighing as he speaks.

She disappears then, and he is left alone.

* * *

From the cockpit, he hears a gentle calling roar. He quells the anger, the rage, the fire-spitting fury, and walks quickly down the ship corridor, across the floor of the flight deck and into the cockpit. He ducks to avoid hitting his head on the entryway.

Bacca gruffly roars and rumbles, pointing out to the endless stars. Sliding into the pilot’s seat, Ben follows his direction. To the left, a Resistance ship floats gently through space. X-wings quickly fly out from the vessel, surrounding the ship.

“Impossible,” Ben says, flicking on switches, grabbing the controls. He frowns. “We left the Falcon on—”

The name of the planet sticks in his throat. That planet was five moons ago. It reminds him too suddenly, too harshly of how quickly time moves.

A signal comes in; someone is on their comms.

Ben’s frown is brief as the front X-wing flies towards the viewport, hovering in space before the glass. Ben's frown sinks away, but he lets go of the controls.

“Patch him through.”

“Hey, Jedi Killer!” Dameron says by way of greeting. Bacca stays silent as the Commander of the Resistance continues his taunts.

“Guess that’s what they’re calling you now.” Dameron’s voice crackles and hisses. The equipment on this ship is poor, more ancient than the scraps the First Order found on Crait, back when he'd thought power mattered. “I know you’re done being all evil head guy, but any chance we could get our Jedi back? Really lowered our morale, I won’t lie. Don’t tell your First Order buddies that, alright? Just give us Rey, and we’ll leave you alone. And the big Wookiee can come with. We’ll make room.”

He isn’t with the First Order. Dameron knows that. Dameron is barely containing his fury.

Ben switches off the comm. The X-wings continue to surround the ship, waiting.

“What’s the closest planet, Bacca?” he asks, watching the ships. Bacca replies with a grunt. Ben raises an eyebrow. “Really? That’ll have to do. Get me back on the comms.”

Dameron picks up.

“Reconsidered our offer?” he says, with trademark mischief but the charm of an increasingly skilled negotiator.

The most effective thing Supreme Leader Hux has done in the last six-month cycles is come up with Jedi Killer. Nothing sticks quite as much as a moniker. But it's why the First Order crumbles, and the Resistance is beginning to thrive.

“Get your pilots out of the way Dameron, or risk being caught up in hyperspace,” Ben says dully, cutting off the comm before any retort. Leaning forward, preparing for the jump, his fingers tracing over switches and dials, he pauses.

When the way is clear, he gives the order, leaving behind the Resistance fleet and Black Squadron.

* * *

He puts the ship on autopilot. Bacca barely stays a moment longer in the cockpit, but he pats Ben’s shoulder as he goes.

His treaty with the Wookiee is a complicated one. Bacca stays and works side by side with him for as long as needed. When they don’t have a job, when they don’t have bounty hunters shooting them out of the stars or running them down through a marketplace, he is returning to his family on Kashyyyk. Ben doesn’t look in Bacca’s eyes if he can help it. When he does, he thinks too much of the past. The very thing he said had to die.

It’s only for her, really, that Bacca stays.

He follows Bacca out onto the flight deck. It’s not much of a flight deck. Only a table, some seating and a single med bay.

Ben sits down opposite Bacca. With his thumbnail, he draws circles into the durasteel table. The sound whispers between them.

“How’s the climate on Kothla?”

Bacca replies in a series of short roars, reeling off the information. It’s wet and boggy. It has short days and longer nights. A smile hovers at the corners of Ben’s mouth as Bacca grunts. The business-like tone is marred by a brief affection. He last heard it when he was a kid and sat on his father’s lap, holding the controls of the Falcon.

“Ideal for you. Yeah, I know.”

He rises from the seating. He turns to head back into the cockpit. “You get on better with her anyway. And yeah,” he adds, “check this ship for tracking devices when we land. Must’ve been a spy. Dameron's enough for one day.”

* * *

Rey wraps a thick blanket around her shoulders before she pokes her head out from the flap of the tent. Chewie’s sat by a roaring campfire. An ash-rabbit, skinned and prepared for cooking, is slowly roasting above the flames. Chewie pokes it occasionally, checking it. It’s only porgs he can’t stand now. She managed to evacuate them from the Falcon finally but even now she still manages to find a feather or two, long after they’ve left.

She yawns as she sits cross-legged on a tree stump. It’s damp through the thick blanket. There’s a smell of fresh rain in the air. She rubs her eyes and gives Chewie a lopsided smile.

“Where is he?” she asks, too used to having to ask it.

Chewie nods towards the thick forest behind them. They’re by the banks of what looks to be a swamp in the gloomy light. Above, there’s no moon and no stars. Only clouds.

Behind her, she hears a growl. As she turns her head, the growl lowers to a back-throat hum. 

It’s as black as night, the fur of the Loth-wolf. A white star crowns his forehead. It seems to grow bigger every time she sees him. Perhaps she's remembering wrong.

“Ben,” Rey whispers. She smiles, her eyes growing damp, as the Loth-wolf approaches.

She reaches out her hand.

Instinctively, his snout ducks against her palm. She smooths her fingers over his fur, sliding her thumb against the crest of his head.

He yawns, his wide mouth showing teeth sharp enough to shatter bone. His dark fur is lit bronze by the firelight as he sits beside her, facing her. He nudges his head underneath her elbow until his large head is lying in her lap.

“ _Ben_ ,” she says, firmer this time. She playfully tries to shove him off. “You big lump. You’re heavy.”

He refuses to move, his ears twitching flat against his head in a sort of frown, so she takes to listening to Chewie and weaving her fingers through the Loth-wolf’s fur.

They met the Resistance again. They think it was a Resistance spy that bugged them with a tracker back on Canto Bight.

"Explains why the Resistance met us," she says, eating a portion of Chewie's meal. She barely remembers Canto Bight. They were only there a little while, barely a night. She remembers empty race tracks and the remnants of casinos, its glory days smashed by a headstrong Resistance engineer and her accomplice, a former stormtrooper. She’d heard the story several times over from Finn, each one more exaggerated than the last, and she'd laughed as Finn’s eyes danced with admiration for this no-one nobody who’d ended up being his saviour.

Ben didn’t engage with them, Chewie tells her. Instead, he let Poe taunt him with the official version of the story (former terror of the stars, Kylo Ren, running off with the last Jedi in a last-ditch attempt at victory), then jumped to hyperspace. Poe knows nothing of the true situation. None of the Resistance does, save for Leia. She lets them run, but the Commander is determined.

Chewie munches on a bone, telling her of the planet they've landed on. Kothla. It has longer nights, shorter days.

"More time with me," she jokes, and he rolls his eyes. She smiles alongside him, and he gives her another portion.

Protecting her is the only reason that Chewie stays by their side.

(Sometimes though, Chewie speaks of Ben with such affection that she half-wonders if Chewie doesn’t still have some hope too Ben Solo will, one day, come home.)

Eventually, when they've talked the events of the day through and planned their drills, Chewie calls it a night. He disappears into his own tent, pouring water on the fire.

Rey breathes. Still stroking the crest of the Loth-wolf’s head, she hums. Slowly, she draws her middle finger down his head, halfway down his spine. All the while, she stretches out with the Force.

If there are unfamiliar or strange life signals, they are too far away for her to feel. This planet is quiet, with little wind. The Loth-wolf radiates warmth, humming a gentle growl as he sleeps. Sweat grows at her temple. Her feet tingle with not having moved. She pushes against the Loth-wolf’s nose.

"I need to sleep."

Her wolf’s eyes open. Bronze-gold where usually, they’re deep and dark. The same sadness lives in them though. That’s how she knows him.

This time, he draws away. She thanks him and heads into the tent. She keeps the blanket wrapped around her shoulders, lying out on the cot in the dark, shivering.

Sensing her cold, the Loth-wolf’s shadow crosses over her tent. He settles in the wet peat. His natural warmth pulses through the tarpaulin. Rey breathes, pushing away the blanket from her shoulders and turning onto her side while the warmth envelopes her.

As she slips into dreams, she half-remembers the night he came to her. On Ahch-To, when she was alone, trying to escape the pressure of the Resistance. They kept looking to her with expectation, as if, because her master was Luke Skywalker and he had faced down Kylo Ren, she could somehow immediately take all the stars and reassemble them.

The Force isn’t war, she wanted to tell them. She wanted to scream that at them. If only so they would stop looking at her in that way; stop begging her.

Exhausted from their looks, their side glances, she asked Leia if she could go to Ahch-To on a supply ship. Just for a little while. To say goodbye to Luke properly, she fudged. Knowing it was a lie Leia accepted.

She felt Luke’s presence as soon as she stepped onto the island. She climbed the steps. Porgs twittered happily at her presence. The nuns headed off in the wrong direction, muttering in their language curses against her return.

The ruined hut was half restored. She clambered past the rubble and sat by the extinguished fire.

There, just as she had before, her heart filled with emotions she barely recognized, so alone she was ( _had_ been), she cried.

A blue glow flooded her, lighting the backs of her hands, her fingers clutched tight around her knees with her cheeks stained with dried tears. Her train of thought had become so tangled, memories and frustration and relief all so tightly wound that she barely knew what it was she was thinking.

“It feels wrong to call you a Padawan, as I never really took you on.” A gasp lurched up into her throat, clarity flooding her brain.

Luke Skywalker was sat beside her. He was not quite the hermit she’d found. He was younger than that. His robes were black, a high collar at his neck. She felt a pang in her heart.

“Luke…” she said.

“I’m here to warn you, Rey.” His tone was calm, despite the urgency. “Ben’s deed, though good, has brought danger to you both.”

“It wasn’t good,” she snapped, her mind flashing back to the straight and true blue beam, running through Snoke's middle. “He was thinking of himself.”

“He was thinking of _you_ ,” Luke replied. “You were the reason he decided to betray Snoke.”

“I…” Rey struggled for words. Her mind gave her then the smile. At the corner of Ben Solo's mouth, as he ignited his saber, his face flooded red. “That’s not… I didn’t…”

“Rey. You know the truth. When you saw the vision – his loyalty switched to you.”

Rey swallowed. She knew the loyalty of Kylo Ren. Ren had killed his father out of loyalty to Snoke. He'd bled, red on white snow, for the dark side.

It was naïve of her to believe the loyalty of Ben Solo would not be the same. That same loyalty to Snoke that had caused him to kill his father? In the moment of a vision, it had been broken without mercy. Somewhere in her heart, she knew, sang to know that she— _belonged_ somewhere. To someone. That there was someone in this universe who loved her as fiercely as she loved every star in the heavens of Jakku. (If she loved each one, there might’ve been a chance, a singular chance that the love would reach out towards her parents. She knew it was a hopeless dream, but hopeless dreams had helped her survive.) It sang when she saw the shape of their bodies, stood side by side.

_Rey... I want you to join me._

Another tear slipped down her cheeks.

Luke watched her with patience.

“Snoke knew there was a chance Ben’s loyalty would transfer from him to you.” Peace flowed from Luke. It made it easier for him to tell the truth. “Rey, I want you to breathe. Reach out. Like I told you. What do you feel?”

Rey swallowed. “Darkness,” she admitted. She’d assumed it was Kylo, Ben, reaching out, begging for her to reappear, for the Force to connect them again—her heart sank as the realization wormed its way from where she had kept it, quiet and still, to the forefront of her mind.

Luke’s eyes looked sad.

“It’s Snoke,” she whispered. Fragments of him, remaining in the Force.

“They will disappear, with time. But, I fear… too late for you and Ben.”

Rey frowned then. “What do you—?”

“Believe in the Force, Rey. It will guide you.”

She turned her head away, hearing the arrival of another ship. Scrambling to her feet, she glanced over her shoulder to see an empty hut. Jumping over the scattered stones, she hurried into the approaching evening. She ran down the long flight of stone steps, her eyes flickering towards the horizon.

A hum started at the base of her skull, hardening into a vibration that shot through her spine.

 _Rey!_  

She couldn’t see him, but she felt it. It was a shock of pain as if all of her bones were snapping at once. With a cry, she fell to her hands and knees. Her whole body shook.

Trembling, she gathered herself up.

The stars were above her as she arrived at the bank. Her supply ship stood idle. A sleek TIE fighter, lit red, was sinking slowly into the ocean water.

Before her supply ship, there stood a creature she did yet know. She would come to know it as her wolf. Her Loth-wolf. Black all over, marked by a single white star on his forehead. Animal by night, human by sun's rise. She would come to know, too, the punishment Snoke had put upon them both.

As Snoke had underestimated Ben Solo, Kylo Ren underestimated his abuser.

The final vestige of Snoke’s power was this. Rey, staggering back with a gasp, as the giant wolf, black fur rippling with a growl, came to stand over her. His wolf breath was hot on her face, his sharp teeth glinting in the starlight.

Fragments of power, however, are only ever truly fragments. The Force, working against Snoke, gave them the gift of a half-life. In animal form, they knew one another but kept no memory of what happened. No memory of where they travelled, or who they encountered. When apart, all they would ever wish to do is keep the other safe.

Sometimes, the Force connected them. The Force’s power showed one the image of the other, then trapped in the body of a wolf or a hawk—but even limitless power goes so far. A connection needs two fully living, breathing creatures to transcend time and space.

All she ever saw now of a planet was its stars and the planets in the sky. All she ever saw of Ben Solo now was a ghost.

She wakes with tears streaming down her face. She looks up and finds a Loth-wolf’s eyes staring at her, his snout poking through the tent flap.

Rey scrambles up and flings her arms around her Loth-wolf’s neck, burying her tears into his fur.

Beyond the tent, she sees this planet’s coming day. Purple shimmers in the grey sky. Glints of yellow spark through the thick trees.

For a moment, she imagines it is Ben Solo she holds. When she opens his eyes, it is. It is his brown eyes that she stares into, and his scar, his full bottom lip, that she traces with her thumb.

When she speaks, it is to Ben Solo.

“I love you,” she says, knowing he won’t remember.

The worst of it is coming. Chewie comes out of his tent, watching it.

Every morning, she tells herself to close her eyes as her mind recedes and her vision changes. She hasn’t yet been able to manage it. All she does, every day, is stay there, rooted to the spot.

Time freezes in this split second, when they are human, together. Her palm itches this morning to reach out and touch him.

A tear falls down her cheek. His mouth opens.

“I—”

* * *

The hawk screeches as she flies high in the air. She knows she’ll soon be back on the ship, in that ridiculous cage, so she savours every moment of freedom she gets.

Bacca passes Ben his clothes and sits in silence by the campfire while he dresses.

He twists together his two braids and tucks them into his bun to secure the thick hair. He needs to get it cut, and he breaks a smile at the thought.

Bacca growls beside him.

“Where to?” he echoes, watching the hawk as she flies over their heads, over the mud and trees of Klotho. “Takodana maybe. I don’t know. Maz has contacts we can barter with, you're right.”

Silence falls. All that breaks it are the calls of the hawk. She dives down towards the campfire and lands. Ruffling her feathers, she picks at the remains of Bacca’s dinner.

Bacca grunts and roars. The hawk keeps picking at old meat.

“I know," he says, waving a hand. "We can’t stay here too long. First Order. Bounty orders, Resistance.”

Bacca gets up, gets breakfast together. Ventures off into the woods to hunt and comes back with another ash-rabbit, ready for skinning. Ben makes up a fire while Bacca makes soup. He serves it to Ben in a durasteel bowl.

Together, they sit and eat while the hawk flies up into the sky. The sun rises higher over the tops of the trees. Ben listens to the sounds of the planet.

Soon, maybe in a matter of days, two or three, their story will begin all over again. Hunted. Chased.

For now, though—there’s the sunrise.

**Author's Note:**

> \- Kothla isn't an official canon planet, but it is donjon's name creator coming to save my ass once again.  
> \- Bacca comes from a headcanon of mine that baby Ben couldn't say "Chewie" so called the Wookiee war hero "Bacca" instead.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and don't forget to leave kudos/comment! K thnx bye *mwah*


End file.
